


street juggler

by potsticker1234



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/F, Fluff, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, about 8 years after atla, azula is soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:55:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27747091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potsticker1234/pseuds/potsticker1234
Summary: Azula and Ty Lee visit the market when their lunch date is interrupted.(Azula is really good with children and it melts Ty Lee's heart.)
Relationships: Azula/Ty Lee (Avatar)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 125





	street juggler

**Author's Note:**

> This short story lives in the same universe as [cold hands](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27736432), but can be read entirely separately :)

The market clamoured with the hustle bustle of everyday life. Carts traversed the road stopping only for royal traffic. Vendors from all corners of the Fire Nation gathered to sell their wares. 

The air smelled distinctly of fresh produce and, well manure quite frankly. 

Ty Lee took in a deep breath through her nose, “Don’t you just love this smell? Reminds me of the cute animals I traveled with in the circus.” 

Azula could hardly return her sentiment, being raised in a palace did nothing to accustom her nose to any scents less regal than usual. Still, she enjoyed trips to the farmer’s market with her girlfriend. 

They padded on towards a soup shack in the center of the square. Azula hung back as she let Ty Lee order for them; not that she, the Princess of the Fire Nation would be embarrassed to be seen ordering food at a commonplace market, she just enjoyed the anonymity of letting Ty Lee do all the talking. 

Though she was now engaged to the Princess, Ty Lee’s title and presence was much less shocking for the average Fire Nation citizen to see outside of the palace. Meanwhile Azula was not known to leave the palace except for diplomatic or crown duties. 

Still though, she enjoyed dressing up in her traveling clothes and forgoing the royal hair pin for once and just simply existing with Ty Lee, forgetting about the weight and responsibility of her normal life. 

Once two steaming hot bowls of soup were placed in Ty Lee’s hands, she met Azula half way at a table tucked away in the shade. The soup was boiling hot and even hotter in spice. 

Ty Lee slurped up a noodle in a rather crude manner and Azula couldn’t help but smile, “Please, Ty Lee, you’re going to have to brush up on table manners if you’re to marry me.”

She wrinkled her eyes at the Princess and kicked her shin under the table. 

Azula’s eyes flashed dangerously, she was in for it now. A slender finger flicked a mushroom up at Ty Lee but her reflexes were too fast and it sailed over her shoulder. 

Ready to throw another piece at her fiancée, Azula stopped and pointed somewhere behind the girl’s head. Ty Lee swiveled in her seat to find said piece of mushroom stuck to the back of a bald man’s head. The mushroom slid down leaving a trail of soup broth in its path until finally falling to the dusty ground. 

Azula and Ty Lee stifled their laughs, both grown adults now yet still giggling like teenagers. Watching Ty Lee’s shoulders silently shake and then shake some more when the man seemed to notice something wrong and was looking around suspiciously; it made Azula realize how lucky she was.

They continued eating their meal rather than throwing it everywhere when a ball came out of nowhere and hit Azula’s bowl knocking it off the table and emptying its contents into her lap. Her head whipped around to the cause of commotion and her eyes landed on a young boy looking over their way and back to his mother a few feet away who was just as surprised at her son’s carelessness.

His jaw was hanging on the ground and only sank lower when Azula approached him with the ball in hand all wet from the spilled soup. He took a few steps back and glanced at his mother who seemed to be gesturing for him to own up to his mistake. He let out a very startled apology. 

“You know,” Azula said, placing the ball on the top of her foot, “if you keep it balanced like this it’s much easier to control and you can even do this.”

She kicked it up and juggled the ball from foot to knee back to foot before kicking it up in the air and catching it effortlessly.

The look in the boy’s eyes changed from fright to awe, “Will you teach me that?” 

Azula kneeled down and placed the ball on his foot as she had done moments ago. 

Ty Lee watched from the table and wondered when the Princess of the Fire Nation had grown so soft. Or perhaps, she thought, it was only because the boy looked too young to even be in school; or maybe it was the lack of royal attire that allowed Azula to relax and let her guard down. Or maybe, Ty Lee entertained, maybe Azula really was one big softie. She knew her fiancée was most definitely gentle towards her, but it had taken years for her to even show a fraction of that gentleness to others outside the royal family or even the Avatar’s group of friends. 

But seeing Azula act like this around a commoner was quite different, it made Ty Lee’s heart grow warmer. 

Once satisfied that the young boy had learned her juggling technique, Azula patted him on the shoulder and sent him back to his mother, “Practice your form everyday and you’ll be the envy of your friends for days to come.”

The boy gave her a gleeful smile and ran off towards his mother asking her if she had seen that and excitedly telling her to watch his new footwork skills. The mother smiled at him, grateful to have avoided a scene at the market when her eyes finally caught the golden ones of her son’s newfound teacher. A shiver went down her spine and Azula turned around too quickly for her to even bow her head. 

“Come on, Ty Lee, I need some new clothes.” 

As if to confirm her suspicions, the mother watched as Ty Lee eagerly grabbed the stranger’s hand and whisked her away down the street. She couldn’t believe her eyes or her fortune. Her son, however, didn’t even seem to notice that he had just met someone with enough power and money to banish their family in the blink of an eye without anyone else being none the wiser.

To him however, he had just made friends with the coolest street ball juggler ever.


End file.
